Lost Children
by Poohdog
Summary: The trouble is, the other side can do magic too", scary enough for a Prime Minister to hear that magic hurts as much as it helps. How does it feel for parents of muggle-borns who lose their child to another world. Myrtle, Ted, Lily, Dirk, Penny, Hermione
1. Myrtle

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I thankfully don't own Moaning Myrtle (I think I might have to resort to bathing at the neighbors' house).**

Myrtle Jones

December 18th, 1929- June 2nd, 1943

I remember the start of the war in 1939, and I remember the packet they handed me, telling all about air-raids and gas masks and bombs. And I remember crying. I was so scared. Here I was, my husband just barely forty, me a little younger, and our three girls, only ten, thirteen, and fifteen. What was I supposed to do but cry? And of course that set off Myrtle's tears; she was such a timid little thing. She had my temperament. Miriam, my middle girl tried to be strong and talked bravely of how if she was a boy and she was off-age she would sign up for the army. Miranda, my oldest, didn't say much at all. Damian, my husband was the one who tried to hold us together. He had held Myrtle on his lap and made her stop crying; she was always her daddy's little girl. He had assured Miriam she was indeed very brave. And he kept me from crying as much as it was possible for me not to cry, at least until the summer.

It was obvious that we were going to war by the summer of 1940. And I cried even more. Damian joined the Home Guard. Miriam took an extreme interest in medicine, determined she was going to be a nurse as soon as she was big enough to pretend she was of-age. Miranda still didn't say much. She was like her father, good at listening but not at all good at telling anyone what she felt. And Myrtle, oh, I thanked God for the gift that was given to Myrtle. In late July a man came to our door, the strangest man I had ever seen. He had long auburn hair with a long, matching beard. He wore robes that I thought had to be hot in the middle of the summer. And he told us that Myrtle, my youngest, my baby, was a witch.

My first thought had been that he was crazy and I almost slammed the door to our flat in his face but it had been Damian, my sensible Damian who let him into our home. As the man began to talk about magic I began to remember how many strange things had happened around Myrtle. I remembered how colorful bubbles had sprung up around her when she was happy in the park and how she had hid herself so well I had found myself wondering if she was invisible when she had to go back to school after being picked on the day before. Then the man, Professor Dumbledore he called himself, had said the truly magic words. The school Myrtle would be able to attend was unplottable. No pilot, no military, no one that wasn't magic like her, would be able to see, much less harm the school he called Hogwarts. And right then I was convinced she was going. Because going to that school would mean that Myrtle was safe. Or at least I thought it would be.

In August, we headed into war and in September, the bombings started. I became even gladder that Myrtle was in her school of magic. And she seemed to like it, most of the time. She said she was sorted into a house called Ravenclaw where everyone was very smart. But she was also complained that she was picked on a little. All in all though, I paid her very little mind when I had two daughters I needed to keep safe at home, and I knew I didn't have to worry about Myrtle.

I tried to convince her many times to see about staying at school over the holidays. I cried regardless of whether she listened or not. Her first year it was a struggle to make her listen; she came home over the Christmas holiday but not the Easter. During her second year she was willing to stay since another one of her muggle-born (what they called Myrtle since both her father and I couldn't do magic) friends was staying as well. But her third year she refused to stay. She came back home crying like crazy because she said someone was opening something called the Chamber of Secrets and hurting the muggle-borns; she didn't want to go back. But I didn't want her to stay at home. She said that all the people in the school who were hurt were going to be fine eventually. So we made her go back. Besides, I figured it wasn't really as bad as she'd said it was, not as easily as her panic was set off at the slightest thing. I wish I had listened. I wish I hadn't made her return. I wish I had never been brought to the school of magic to hear that my daughter was dead.

Sure, I found out that ghosts were real, that my daughter had become one. And when I first found out, I was overcome with joy. At least I still had part of her, an imprint so to speak. But as I watched my other children grow up and get married and have children of their own while my youngest was frozen at fourteen, a miserable awkward fourteen at that, it became not such a blessing. As much as it made me cry and sob to even think it, I wished my daughter had truly died. My daughter's imprint was a curse to herself.

I thought magic would be what would save my daughter. Yet because of the Chamber of Secrets, in a school of magic, she died at the age of fourteen.

**So yes, random idea I had when thinking about Hermione actually. I was thinking about how much it must suck for her parents since they kind of lost their daughter when she left and then I got to thinking too much and realized that a lot of the muggle-borns' parents probably feel the same. So I'm thinking of doing the mothers' perspectives of how they lost their children to the wizarding world. Not all of them will be death like Myrtle. Right now I have Marilyn Callen (my own character who's the mother of a half-blood who's parents were never specifically mentioned) and Ted Tonks done. Hope you liked this chapter and even more, I hope you review. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Mara

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and I sadly don't own Remus Lupin otherwise he wouldn't have died. Poor Teddy.**

Marilyn Jean Lupin nee Callen

June 3rd, 1935- August 21st, 1979

"Marilyn Jean Callen get down here!" I shouted when she needed to get off to school on her first day. It was a few moments before I heard the sound of footsteps trampling down the stairs.

"Sorry Mum," she said rushing down the stairs, a book I thought she had already packed away in her trunk under her arm. "I was reading," she explained as I ran my hand over her auburn hair. She looked up at me with big, dark blue eyes, her father's eyes. I took a deep breath to avoid crying. Today I was determined not to cry, despite the fact that I knew her father would have loved to be there. But Max had died three years ago in the war, and I was still just beginning to move on with life. He wasn't going to be there, not physically at least.

"Mum, I want to go with Mara. Can I go too? Can I?" my little boy, Marty pleaded with me for the twentieth time that day. I smiled at him, in truth glad that he wasn't going. For one thing, he was my little boy. For another thing, Mara was already going and I didn't know what would happen to me if I was left alone. Selfish as it seems, my two children were my reason for living when I had no Max. My mother had made me realize the fact though. For that first year after Max died it had been hard for me to take care of myself, much less my two children. It had taken her constant reminding about my son and my daughter to make me function again.

"I promise I'll send you lots and lots of letters, Marty," Mara assured him as she knelt down, her skirt touching the ground as she tucked her book in the bag she was bringing on the train. She was smiling widely as she stood up, the light reaching her eyes. I knew she was excited and happy. In a way I was excited and happy for her. And on the other hand, I was irrationally panicked. I knew she was just going for school, not into anything deadly. But Max had gone away too, he just hadn't come back.

"With owls?" Marty chirped in anticipation. Mara nodded eagerly as she threw her bag over her shoulders.

"Ready?" she asked me. I nodded even though I knew the truth: I would never be ready. Marilyn, or Mara as she insisted to be called, seemed so brave to me. Here she was, taking off to join a brand new world that less than two months ago she had known nothing about. It had been only a short while ago when a man with a sleek black mustache had come to our house. He told us that he taught potions at a school called Hogwarts; he told us that Mara was magic. There was no moment of doubt in my mind. Mara, with her head fixed both heavily on the ground and high in the clouds at the same time, had believed in magic since she had first sat in her father's lap and heard his own fairy tales, full of magic and love. I had watched how she tried desperately to re-enact some of the tricks of the good witches in his stories. We had both seen the times when she had managed to succeed. For a while, we'd questioned it, and then we'd just accepted it. Mara was different, or at very least a magnet for the unlikely occurrences of the world.

Max would have been thrilled to learn that there was a school for her to learn how to refine her gift. He would have loved seeing Diagon Alley and would have poured over her books with her. I admit, shopping for her school things I shed quite a few tears though I hid them as best I could. I missed my Max.

We arrived at the station with no idea how to get on to the platform. Professor Slughorn, the man who had come to see us, had seemed distracted when Mara showed him how she could change the color of things if she tried really hard. So the three of us, Marty, Mara, and me, stood between platforms nine and ten, not quite sure what to do. It was then that a little boy came and tapped Mara on the shoulder as she glared at the barrier between the two platforms, as if she could make it expand into a whole other platform. "Are you looking for something?" he asked, his voice heavily laden a hidden hint. I looked at the little boy. He had light brown hair that looked a little too long, and he was wearing a mismatched pair of clothes. Mara giggled a little at his outfit as she looked at him. The boy gave her a confused look.

"We're looking for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," Marty babbled suddenly, not seeming to understand why no one was saying anything specifically. The boy grinned.

"So you are headed to Hogwarts then?" he declared. Mara nodded shyly. I forgot how quiet she got when she met new people. It made me think she was even braver for heading off to this new school. "I am too." He stuck out his hand. "My name's John Lupin," he told her. "What's yours?"

"Marilyn Callen," she replied quietly. Then her eyes narrowed. "But don't call me Marilyn. It's Mara." He agreed, at the time, and then he showed us how to get through the platform. His own parents and his older sister had already gone through but his sister had gone back through to wait for her boyfriend. John had gone after her only to be disgusted by his sister's way of greeting her boyfriend with a wholehearted kiss. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he had remained disgusted by kissing.

Mara left for school and she sent her letters with owls like she'd said she would. But I watched her grow up a little bit more each time she came home. I watched as she grew closer and closer to the boy who she met on the platform until she stood there on the platform to say good-bye to John in much the same way John's sister had said hello to her boyfriend. It seemed like so little time before she was getting married, before she had a little boy, and a little girl. And I loved seeing my two grandkids, Remus and Artemis, called Missy. And I thought of how much Max would have loved them too. They both had his eyes.

And then, suddenly, Mara stopped bringing them by as much. At first I thought perhaps she was busy. It was only a couple of months after Missy was born and Mara had just started to work again. I had tried to tell her that it was fine for her to leave them with me. Or I could take Remus for a while to give her some time to get things sorted out with Missy. Remus was never any trouble. Well, no, he was a mischievous little thing but he had just that perfect little boy look that got him out of trouble far too often. But all my offer did was cause Mara to pull further away. But neither Marty nor I could figure out what had happened. That was until Marty got mad on my account and went to go confront his sister.

"Mum," he said quietly as he came back to my place. I hadn't expected him to come by; he had moved out a few years ago, but he seemed sad as he sat down beside me. "Mum, Remus is sick. That's what happened to Mara and John. Remus got sick."

"Is he getting better?" I asked looking over at him.

"They're trying," Marty told me. "But they're not going to let you have him over for a while."

"Why not?"

"Mum he's- They said if he gets through the first year of transformations then he's got a chance of living for a longer time but right now he's so weak and-" Marty suddenly stopped. "Mum," he repeated my name again, "do you remember the fairy stories that Dad used to tell with the unicorns and nymphs and things."

"Yes, of course," I agreed walking toward him, "but what-"

"Mum," he said, his eyes sad. I knew it was serious if he kept repeating my name. "The werewolves are really out there too. Remus got bit by one." Marty bit his lip. "Remus is one. And he's so- so sick mum. He's just a little boy but he looks so thin and scared and he's got these scars. Tonight was a full moon, Mum, and I heard him from where they have to lock him when he transforms. And it sounds like he's killing himself when he changes and it's killing Mara and John but they won't- they don't want us there. They want us to stay away."

"You mean they want me to stay away?" And Marty didn't answer. But I already knew exactly what was going on.

So when my daughter was twenty-nine years old I lost her because she was trying to protect me, but not from getting hurt by Remus as a werewolf. She was trying to protect me from his death. When I finally saw them again at Christmas, he looked just as Marty had said, as if he was dying at the age of six. Mara had seen me struggle so long over Max's death; she didn't want me to have to get over Remus's. I lost my daughter when she was sure she was going to lose her son.

**So, um yeah. J. K. Rowling said that Remus was a half-blood in an interview and I didn't figure he was the son of a wizard and a muggle so I guessed one of his parents was a muggleborn. I went with his mother. I hope it wasn't too confusing. Hope you enjoyed the chapter actually!  
**


	3. Ted

**Nope, still don't own Harry Potter. I know, shocker, right?**

Theodore Brian Tonks

March 5th, 1951- January 8th, 1998

To my oldest, Richard, black was the perfect color for the night sky, the color it was when he could see the stars most clearly. He would often take one of his younger siblings out in the backyard with him to watch the stars. The youngest two loved it the most.

For Marianne, my oldest girl black meant dark and dark was the thing she was most afraid of when she was little. She was the one who protested when I tried to turn off the light and was the most scared of monsters under the bed and in the closet. Even as an adult, she insisted on having some form of a nightlight in the hall, even before she and her husband had children. Her son Brad had the same fear.

In the middle was Lisa and to her black meant the dress she knew she looked stunning on her. It was the one her father and brothers didn't ever want to let her out of the house while she was wearing it.

To my littlest, my baby, Kitty, black was something to be admired. It was Richard when he took her and my other son outside to look at the stars and taught her new things. It was Marianne bravely walking through the dark hallway when the light burnt out to her own crying son who was scared of the monster under his bed. It was seeing how Lisa looked in the dress and the confidence it brought her. And it was the "Romeo and Juliet type love" that Ted had gotten himself into.

And to Ted, the second youngest of my five children, two years younger than Lisa and three years older that Kitty, Black was a name.

Of course the meaning of the name changed right along with Ted. In the beginning, in fact, it meant the same thing as it did to Marianne, although he shared a room with Richard so he never did get as scared. Back then he thought his big brother could protect him from any evil. He thought he was so lucky to have a big brother right in his room to keep him safe. And he was lucky, though not necessarily because of Richard. Ted was my child who fell from a tree but stopped in midair before he hit the ground and gently floated down. He was the one who spent ages in the garden and could make plants grow I had been sure were dead. He was also the one I was sure I saw talking to a potato with a face but that was a different matter entirely. The point is that I thought surely Ted had been born under a lucky star; so did he for that matter. Ted was as carefree as any little boy could possibly be. But no, it wasn't luck the woman with the tight black bun had told us. At least that wasn't all of it. Ted, my little boy, was gifted; he was a wizard.

That Christmas after his first term at Hogwarts was when Black became a name. He was telling Marianne and Kitty all about the houses at his school; telling them how he was a Ravenclaw which was supposed to mean he was smart, Gryffindors were supposed to be brave, Hufflepuffs were supposed to be loyal and fair, and Slytherins, well, he had to tell them about this one girl in Slytherin. Her name was Bellatrix Black, and she was mean. She didn't like people like him who had non-magic parents (muggles he called us; what a funny word) but she had never noticed Ted really so he wasn't worried at all. But she got in trouble a lot and she cursed people ("Like she uses that word like Richard did when he accidently slammed his fingers in the car door?" "Kitty, I told you not to talk about that!" "No, Kitty, she used curses like bad spells that hurt people.")

The next new information I really heard about a Black was when we were dropping Ted off at the platform for his third year. His friend came up and pointed something out. "Oh, no, not another one," Ted's friend groaned, looking over at two girls who were loading their trunks on to the train.

"Watch out. See there? I think there's a third coming in a couple of years," Ted replied with a laugh, looking at an even younger blonde girl. And that was the last I heard for a long time. Even some of the information about Bellatrix seemed to die away or perhaps she'd calmed down, or so it seemed until Ted's last year when he cast a look a little too long at a pretty brunette girl who was walking away with her family while leaving on Christmas break. So it was until Marianne pestered him to know if he had a girlfriend a year later, and he said sort of. Until Kitty went with him to Diagon Alley during her Christmas holiday another year later and met his "sort of" girlfriend accidentally, realizing there was a "forbidden element to all this". Really, the next big chunk of information I got was on New Year's Eve the year Ted was eighteen, out of school, and working with magical plants in his strange magical world that I couldn't understand. That was when the doorbell rang and a pretty brunette girl came into the room with a look of fear and desperation, anger and confusion written across her face. And I knew for sure four things the instant I saw her: Ted was utterly in love with her, she was completely in love with him, she was in some sort of trouble, and she _was_ trouble.

Another year passed before I saw her again. Ted brought her to Christmas with our family as his fiancée. And I knew in an instant what she didn't even know at the time. She was pregnant. How I knew I can't say. It was a gift I'd always had. And while I'd been a little disappointed in Ted that they weren't married first, I was happy. Andromeda was a sweet girl. She was one of those types who are brave but never know it; one of the types who never know how much their eyes blab about their inner emotions. To her, opening the refrigerator was an adventure, talking on the telephone was a sign of insanity, and even the most dull commercials on the television were fascinating. But she was brave for other things besides facing our world. She had lived in the magic world, the one Ted lived in and I couldn't bring myself to understand, all her life. But her version of the world said she should never come in contact with my world, with the muggle world. The Bellatrix of Ted's first years was her sister. And the terror was entirely true. I saw in her eyes that she loved her sister, but that she was also completely terrified of her older sibling or at least of something her sister was involved in. I didn't realize how scared I should have been of what Bellatrix was involved in until a witch showed up at our door and said that Ted was in the hospital.

That day I stood there, looking at him, my youngest son. Slowly he woke up and he tried to laugh. But my husband asked him what had happened. I wanted to hear him say he had tripped and fallen down the stairs but magic could fix that. I had seen him fix Kitty's nose when she had gotten hit with a basketball less than a year before. If this was something merely accidental, muggle, he wouldn't have still been in the hospital. He told me slowly, reluctantly, that it had been Andromeda's family, more specifically her aunt and her older sister.

That October, long after the hospital and past his wedding to Andromeda, Ted came home when his father and I were there with this tiny little baby in his arms. Her hair was changing as he held her and it fascinated me. But Ted had come to tell me that he wouldn't be coming back for a while. He told us that Andromeda's sister was dangerous and that they would be skipping houses for a while. They were going to try and keep things as normal as possible; both he and Andromeda needed to keep their jobs. But they weren't going to be contactable outside of work really. And he certainly didn't want us to get hurt for knowing where they were at or because they were with us over the holidays. The last thing he told us was that a couple nights ago he had helped to put wards on our house and hopefully we would be somewhat safe. Then he hugged us, took Nymphadora from my arms, and left.

The next time I saw my youngest son, ten years had past. I had watched my other four children and stayed close to them but there had been no word from Ted. The baby in his arms was now a clumsy, caring, girl with her hair always some bright color. Andromeda's eyes spoke far more than her age; she was only twenty-nine but from her eyes she seemed well into her eighties with stories of betrayal and fear and heartache. And Ted, my jolly happy boy, oh he still made his jokes. But he was older too. And the same fear had leaked into him and some of the betrayal. Ted who I had thought was born under a lucky star and who had never worried about anything really, Ted's eyes spoke of eons of worry.

Once upon a time, I thought magic was a gift. It would lead to Ted having a fairly carefree life. I thought he would learn from the school of magic and come back to our world, just with a tool that made things easier for him. I didn't think of him falling in love with a witch, of prejudice, of a job in the magic world, of a war raging about blood. I didn't know that magic would take my happy-go-lucky boy and turn him into a worried man of thirty who I barely knew in the blink of an eye.

**All right, first things first, I'm really sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things have been hectic. Combine that with writers block and nothing moved. On the up side, I passed O-Chem I with a B-, which I think isn't bad for the class everyone says is the class to weed-out people who aren't really set for Bio and Chem majors at my school. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. Thank you for reading it.**

**Okay, so question time now. Right now, in my list of muggle-borns I have Benjy Fenwick, Lily Evans, Mary Cattermole (nee MacDonald because don't you find it strange both Mary's were introduced in the same book with an inkling that they're both muggle-borns?), Dirk Cresswell, Donaghan Tremlett (in the Weird Sisters, was on J. K. Rowling's website), Penelope Clearwater, Hermione Granger, and Justin Finch-Fletchley. I'm probably not doing Dean Thomas (since he's actually a half blood) or the Creevey brothers since I'm telling this from the mother's perspective and always got the feeling that it was only them and their dad. However, is there anyone else anyone can think of? Be grateful for names or even a no idea.**

**Thanks again for reading!**


	4. Benjy

**Nope, still don't own Harry Potter. I know, shocker, right?**

Benjamin Stephen Fenwick

July 30th, 1953 – June 18th, 1980

I was sixteen when this tiny creature was placed in my arms. I had no idea where Stephen was or what had happened. It was 1953 and they had knocked me out during the birth. But I knew he was mine. "His father named him Benjamin," the nurse told me and I nodded, as if this weren't a surprise. We had never really discussed names; we hadn't discussed much actually. After I'd finally had the courage to admit to myself and then his family that I was pregnant, Stephen and I had been quickly married. Stephen's one unprompted comment about the baby throughout my pregnancy had been when he asked why I hadn't used the coke bottle right.

Even after Benjamin was home, Stephen still didn't comment on him. I was the one who took care of our son Benjy completely. Stephen worked in his father's office building. And then, one day, when Benjy was about eighteen months, Stephen just disappeared. The phone rang as I got into the apartment with two bags of groceries in one arm and Benjy squirming on my hip. I set Benjy down on the ground as I hurried to grab the phone. He giggled as he waddled over to play with the telephone cord that was looping down while I was talking. It was Stephen's father; Stephen hadn't shown up at work and his father was demanding to know where he was. I couldn't say. He'd been gone that morning and I'd assumed he was at work. I told his father I'd see what I could find out, hung up the phone and began to search the apartment. His clothes were gone. His pictures were gone. Everything that was his and even some things that were both of ours were gone. I started to cry. I had just turned eighteen and I was alone with an eighteen month old baby.

Stephen didn't come back. I told myself he would be gone a week and then picked up a couple house cleaning jobs in an attempt to keep Benjy and myself fed. Then I told myself it would be a month and got a part-time job at a diner I found with a nice owner who would allow me to bring Benjy with me. After that six months had passed and I was working full time at the diner and an assortment of house cleaning jobs to keep myself and the toddler a float. I started to give up hope. For his father, that seemed to have taken all of about two weeks. Stephen's father sent Benjy and I a check every six months or so, nothing grand but enough to help, perhaps out of guilt for his son's actions. He never wanted to see his grandson.

The years passed on and things were tight. We lived from one paycheck to another as Benjy grew. But Benjy never seemed to notice or care. He wasn't like me; this was all he knew, all he remembered. I thanked God that out of all the kids I could have gotten, I had gotten sweet-tempered Benjy. Even as a baby he was good. He was shy, despite being half-raised in the diner. He hated lying. He was kind-hearted; he cried when he was four and I killed a spider who had blown in through the door. Benjy was the thing that kept me sane. And I made sure he went to school and worked hard, because Benjy would have better than this; Benjy was better than this struggle. He would do better than I had; he would finish school.

So he sat at the diner, doing his homework and the regulars would sometimes come and talk with him. He was more of a listener than a talker with them, though I knew there were times when he would be incredibly talkative, his eyes wide with excitement as he walked back to our flat with me, his hand in mine, telling me about his day. "Sally and I shared cookies today Mummy. I had chocolate chip and she had snickerdoodle and we both like both so we split them both in half." "I helped Sam with his English homework today and then Ms. O'Keefe called on him to read his story and she really liked what he wrote!" "Today at break Max and I played pirates only we decided we wanted to be pirates like Robin Hood instead of just mean ones and my shirt turned green during break when I wanted to be Robin." And I was happy for him, glad that he was so happy with school. If he was happy there, he would do well. If he did well he would grow up and get a good job. He wouldn't have to work so hard. And I clung to that wish day and night until shortly after he turned eleven.

It was late in the morning, between the breakfast and the dinner rush. I was cleaning the counter as I watched Mr. Jacobson, the only customer, sip his coffee in a booth while telling Benjy about the Tudors. I rolled my eyes at my eleven year old, trying to soak in any drop of history he could. That was when he walked in, a short older man with bright blue eyes who smiled as he walked up to the counter. I blinked hard, and stared at the counter, telling myself not to stare at the man who had just come into the diner. Mr. Jacobson stopped talking to look at the little man and Benjy followed his gaze. "Hello my dear," the man greeted as he hopped onto a stool. "You wouldn't happen to be Eleanor Fenwick, would you?"

"I- I would," I agreed, staring at the man.

"Perfect! And is your son Benjy around?"

"Yes, he's over there," I said, glancing over at the table.

"Wonderful! I have something I wish to discuss with you two dear. How about I go get him and bring him over here?" He looked at me sheepishly. "You wouldn't mind getting me a butterbeer, now would you?" he asked.

"We don't have beer here," I answered, wondering what on earth a butterbeer was and what on earth this man was doing here. "We have soda. I could put cherry syrup in it if you'd like." He cheerfully agreed to try it and than went to go get Benjy from the table. My son looked just as confused as I did when the stranger slid behind him to hide from Mr. Jacobson before pulling out a wooden stick flicking it around a little. Finally he introduced himself as Professor Flitwick; he taught at Hogwarts, a school of magic. He gave Benjy his acceptance letter, told us there was an account set up for families with low income, and gave us directions to get to Diagon Alley and Platform 9 ¾. It didn't occur to me to not believe him, not when he told me to think about any strange phenomena that happened around Benjy. There had been a few: his clothes changing color or lengthening with him so it too forever until they were too small and the keys someone had dropped down the toilet in the diner that came floating out toward him among other things.

"Do think about it," Flitwick said happily. "I hope to see you there Mr. Fenwick!" He slipped off his stool. "And that soda was awfully good," he said as a final remark before he slipped away. I stood there for a moment with Benjy, locked in a gaze of wonder before Mr. Jacobson walked over to us.

"D'you hear that buzzin' in here while that short guy was in here?" he asked, looking at us. The two of us shook our heads and didn't say anything more on the subject until that night.

That night, I told him he was going. Magic was beyond anything I had dreamed. I had watched as Flitwick had preformed spells, listened as he explained magic. Things could be so easy for Benjy, better than I had dreamed. "But won't you miss me?" he asked, meeting my eyes and I knew that was his concern. Benjy wanted to go but he didn't want me to be alone.

"I'll miss you like crazy, but I want you to go," I told him.

So more time passed and he returned dutifully every break, wrote every week. He poured himself into his schoolwork, especially history, saying that the teacher was dull but the subject was brilliant. Benjy had friends, good ones, but like in school there weren't a whole lot of them. Throughout school he was still shy around girls but when he was seventeen he began to date a girl who came and sang at the club next to the diner from time to time, the same time I married Harvey Drake.

I loved Harvey. He was good-natured, a sweet guy. He cared for me, thought I was precious. There was no desire for us to have kids; he already had a grown daughter and Benjy was already grown by wizarding standards. I thought things were prefect. I was finally happily married, my son was in love, things were great. And then Benjy told me about the war.

What are you supposed to assume when your son tells you there's a war starting in a world you'll never be apart of, not truly? Benjy was graduating in May and he said he was going to help fight against it; Dumbledore had offered. He'd shown me Dumbledore before, on a strange card with a moving picture. "I've got a job too," he told me, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm working as a wizarding historian at the Stonehenge. We work inside one of the rocks," he informed me with a grin and I knew he was serious. After all, he'd also told me that their entire government was housed inside a phone booth.

I tried not to worry then, tried to ignore it when Benjy came by wearing bandages and cuts. It was hard to accept that magic, which was supposed to make his life easier, could also make his life harder; things always have even odds and if Benjy was allowed to use magic, so was the other side. But he assured me he was alright. When he was twenty one he married Margaret, the muggle girl who sang at the club. Two years later they had a daughter and then two more years later, they had a son. And he was happy. They were never hungry, anyone in his family. He thought the sun rose and set on Margaret, an idea which, shy as she was when she wasn't singing, made her blush bright red. To him his daughter was a princess and his son was the most brilliant boy to ever walk the Earth. And then with a knock on the door, it ended.

A young woman with a square jaw, barely out of school herself I guessed came to tell us that my son, my daughter-in-law, and my grandson were dead; my granddaughter was in St. Mungo's and there was no knowing yet if she would recover. The young woman trembled and began to cry as tears began to roll down Harvey's face. I just stood there in his arms, shell-shocked. Benjy.

"Only found bits of him so far," a coarse voice said and I looked up to see a man with a disfigured face, talking to a younger man, younger than Benjy. It was a few days later at my son's and his family's funeral. I shook in Harvey's arms but I did not cry. I hadn't cried when I'd gone to St. Mungo's and I'd seen Suzy, my granddaughter seeming crazy as could be when just a week before I'd seen her as a happy four-year-old girl. The doctor, or healer I suppose, said that the barrier in Suzy's brain that kept her magic at her age level had broken when she was so afraid; she might never recover though the prognosis was getting better. I took a deep breath at that memory and leaned back into Harvey's chest. No tears were falling as I saw friends of Benjy's sob for him, as Harvey's eyes dripped tears again, as I saw the small coffin where my grandson of two was residing. And then I saw that man and I was angry.

It was his fault, I thought suddenly. He was the one who dragged Benjy into fighting; he was the one to blame. And I broke free of Harvey and ran forward, not noticing or caring about the stares I was getting, the wand pointed at me by the gnarled man who had just spoken about Benjy being in bits. "You!" I yelled, ceasing the front of his robes, hardly noticing that he was old and should be brittle. "You, you, you!" I finally felt the tears starting to fall. "You did this to them! You killed him, killed her and Matt! It's you're fault Suzy's in the hospital- you're fault!" I yelled through my tears, unable to think rationally anymore, shaking the man old enough to be my grandfather. And I was sobbing, for the first time I was. I kept babbling even as Harvey tried to pull me away, screaming at the man for taking away what I loved most in the world and he let me. The one many of them called the greatest wizard in history let me yell at him; he looked as if he was drowning in guilt while a muggle woman screamed at him.

"You have no idea how much I regret their deaths or Suzanna's condition," he said soberly when I had finished making a scene. A circle of emptiness surrounded us. Even Harvey had stepped back as if afraid such angry grief was contagious. "I never intended for anything to be taken away from you, much less your son."

I believed him at the time as Harvey stepped forward again and wrapped his arms around my sobbing body but in the end I didn't. Nineteen years later, Suzy died in the final battle of the war, still bearing the scars of the night her father had been killed fighting for Dumbledore, the last hint of Benjy I had dying with a twenty-three year old woman. I lost Benjy, the best thing that came from years of hard work; the one my husband had told me was amazing. I lost him to the war; I lost him to Dumbledore; I lost him to magic.

**So the reason I haven't posted is that I've rewritten this chapter three times and still don't like it. I finally figured, eh, what the heck, I'll post it so I can move on to Lily (which I've written a rough draft of and like better). Anyway, sorry for the delay and the crappy chapter. Thanks for reading.**

**Oh, and if you want to know, Benjy Fenwick is mentioned in the old Order picture that Moody shows Harry. I don't know if he's a muggle-born but I assumed someone in the Order probably was and it wasn't any of the well known characters except Lily and I guess by the fact that we don't know, McGonagall and/or Moody could be muggle-borns. That leaves Benjy, Emmeline, Sturgis, Cardoc, or Edward Bones.**


	5. Lily

**Nope, still don't own Harry Potter. I know, shocker, right?**

Lily Marie Potter nee Evans

January 30th, 1960 – October 31st, 1981

I'd always wanted two girls. I was an only child and always remembered wanting someone to play with, to talk to, even just to fight with instead of having to be the only apple of my parents' eyes. So I was happy beyond belief when I found out I was pregnant again less than two years after my first daughter was born. I was even more thrilled when my baby came out screaming and the doctor pronounced it to be a girl. Luke and I went through the same list of names we had with our first daughter, minus, of course, Petunia, trying to figure out what we would name this daughter. Marigold, Daisy, Calla, Violet… "Lily," I decided as I held her in my arms. "Her name is Lily, don't you think?" Luke kissed my forehead and then looked down at her with the same happy grin he had with Petunia.

"Lily," he agreed.

"Lily," Petunia stumbled over later that day, a grin on her face as Luke held her up on the bed so she could see her baby sister. "Lily."

"Lil-eee!" Petunia called nearly eighteen years later, stopping her foot at the base of the stairs. "Would you get down here already? Some of us have plans today that don't involve you! Lily!"

"Petunia, calm down," I scolded, walking around the corner of the kitchen to go talk to her. "She's probably still sleeping."

"But I need to get going sometime," Petunia huffed. "And you won't let us eat breakfast on Christmas Eve without her."

"Then why don't you go and get her instead of yelling up the-" I stopped as I heard the front door open and shut. My heart hammered in my chest as I walked passed the stairway to get a better look. So did Petunia. And there in the doorway, stood Lily, stripping off her cloak, wearing her robes from school. She looked over at us curiously.

"Good morning," she greeted, staring between us.

"How long have you been out?" I asked her, my voice low. Lily didn't answer.

"I'll bet you were with that boy," Petunia sneered.

"James?" she questioned in bewilderment. "No, I wasn't with James. I mean, well, he was there but-"

"That Snape boy!"

"Petunia," I sighed though I agreed with her. For so many years now, I'd watched that boy stare after her as though she were a piece of candy, dangled right in front of him. And I didn't have much of a liking for him, I had to admit. At nine he had been someone I'd pitied, despite the glares I'd gotten from him when I was doing "muggle-things". I knew things weren't easy for him at home; everyone who passed by Spinner's End knew things couldn't be good for him at home. But still, he had gotten worse. There was an air of violence around him and he did everything he could to persuade Lily not to have him over to our house. I'd thought he had won that battle and that's why he hadn't been around lately.

But I'd tried to like him, I really had. Lily thought he was a great friend. She loved him, like she loved all her friends, as if she would have given almost anything to keep him safe and happy. She introduced Severus to love; he introduced her to magic, made her confident about her gift before the professor at Hogwarts even showed up at our door to tell her she was a witch. The teacher hadn't stayed long once he realized how much she knew.

"I haven't been friends with Severus since he called me a mud-blood at the end of my fifth year," she huffed, shoving her cloak angrily on a peg by the door. It fell to the ground. I blinked as I watched her growl in anger, grab her cloak off the ground and march off toward the stairs. How had I not noticed? Lily hated losing friends. She had cried when she realized at thirteen that she and her friend Izzy from primary school had nothing to talk about anymore.

"Lily," I began again, my voice firm. I reached out for her but Petunia got there first.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"None of your business! I'm of age anyway."

"Not in this house you're not," I told her. "Here you're a child until you're eighteen, not seventeen like at that school of yours."

"In that world of mine," she corrected, crossing her arms over her chest, her cloak held to her breast beneath her arms. She was glaring at the floor. "I'm _not_ a child and I would appreciate if you didn't treat me like one."

"Lily, what's going on?"

"You've been out all night, haven't you?" Petunia asked snidely. "What have you been-"

"Shut it Petunia!" she yelped, spinning around to glare at her sister.

"Make me!"

"You know I could, Giraffe!"

"Lily!" I yelped.

"Slut!"

"Pe-tun-ia!" I yelled louder.

"Tell yourself that's what's going on if you want," Lily growled, both of them ignoring me. "I wouldn't expect you to understand the truth, muggle!" she said, throwing the word at her like it was a curse. Then she ran up the stairs, dropping her cloak on the ground accidentally as she went.

"I'm going to the Dursleys," Petunia announced angrily as she marched forward to the pegs, grabbed her coat, and headed out the door before I could stop her. I stood there, with two daughters who wanted nothing to do with this family anymore. I choked again on my tears. Luke had died a little less than a year ago of a heart attack. I knew there would be nothing to hold my girls together as sisters once I was gone. Taking a deep breath, I headed up the stairs.

The girls had shared a room together since Lily started sleeping through the night. But Lily hadn't been there very much since she was eleven. I remembered walking up to the room the night after Lily left for the first time to find Petunia sitting on her bed looking as if someone had shot her. "She's gone," Petunia muttered and began to cry.

"She'll come back," I assured her as I held Petunia close to me. But it would never be the same. Petunia would change and Lily would change with every passing term. The two little girls of my dreams would change from friends who sometimes fought, to an even mix of both, and finally, to two fighters who sometimes grudgingly agreed to be friendly.

"I didn't mean it," Lily cried, as I walked into the room. She was huddled on her bed, clutching her pillow tight to her chest. Already, barely a week into her holiday, it was obvious to see the line in the bedroom separating Lily's side from the side that had been Petunia's before she moved out a few months ago; Petunia's side was clean and Lily's was strewn with clothes, books, and who knew what. It was obvious Lily couldn't get passed the invisible line. When they were little, it had been far harder to tell whose side was whose. Petunia was less neat and the two of them had gotten along so the line was often crossed; Lily's things were on both sides and so were Petunia's. That had ended the summer after Lily's first year with a major fight, Petunia yelling that she wanted her space to be clean.

"Mum, you know I didn't mean it. I'm proud that my family is muggles. It means you're hard working and it means you love me even though I'm different and- and- But it's so hard Mum! This war, I'm just- I told Dumbledore I would help and I'm going to keep on helping no matter what but I didn't imagine it would hurt this much." And she cried into her pillow as I walked over to the bed. She dropped the pillow as I sat down, throwing her arms around me and crying into my shoulder. "I'm so scared and I worry about you and Petunia all the time and- and-" she broke off, unable to continue. "I need to tell her I'm sorry," Lily said, looking up at me with those bright green eyes she had gotten from my mother. "I need to tell her now." She sat up and put her feet on the floor but I put a hand on her shoulder.

"She'll come back," I told her. It was Christmas Eve. We had traditions. And Petunia lived by traditions.

"Will she forgive me?" Lily asked and I wondered if she wanted to know if Petunia would forgive her for yelling at her or forgive her for becoming a witch, for changing. Petunia hated change despite the fact that she had changed just as much as Lily in the past few years.

"She'll come back," I repeated, not sure if Petunia would forgive her for either offense. "Get some sleep. We'll talk more later." She nodded and I got up from the bed, leaving the room and heading toward the bathroom. I stood there for a moment before pulling my pills out from behind the toilet where I had hidden them. I drank from the tap to swallow them and then walked out of the bathroom to go back downstairs. I heard Lily crying in her room again but I didn't go in. She was crying the same way she had for Izzy, softly and to herself. She had just realized that there was no going back with Petunia, something I didn't want to acknowledge myself. I had wanted my two girls to always have someone but because of magic they had been separated; I would lose my dream. Soon there would be nothing to keep them together anymore. According to the doctor, there would soon be no me in their lives. I had cancer and it was spreading too fast; I hadn't told my girls.

**Lily was a bit easier to write so I've got it out sooner. Hope you like it. I was trying to do something a little different from the usual (a lot of people have written about Lily), so hopefully I didn't bore you with same-old, same-old. Thanks for reading!**


	6. Mary

**As you all, undoubtably know, I don't own Harry Potter. If you want to read a book by someone who does, go read one of the seven books that start Harry Potter and the… or you know, one of those three other tiny ones.**

Mary Elizabeth Cattermole nee MacDonald

March 4th, 1961 - Present

Years ago, I had married Jackson MacDonald. Both of us had two sons from previous marriages, his Edward and Robert and mine Paul and Trent. My first husband had died in a car accident four years before; his first wife had died mysteriously, he couldn't exactly tell me. I thought it was because he didn't know. As it turns out, it was because by law he couldn't tell me until we were married. His first wife had been a witch. Now don't get me wrong; I don't mean that as an insult. I mean she was a witch as in casting spells and creating potions. He told me shortly after we were married; I thought he was a nut, that is until I saw his older son, then six, accidently push my younger son into a nail, causing a pretty deep cut. I rushed over as Edward put his hand over my son's cut, his eyes panicked and then suddenly, it was gone. Edward smiled, my son, Trenton stopped crying, and I realized I had just seen magic. Three months later, I had my first and only daughter. We named her Mary.

Mary was a contradiction at every turn which I liked to jokingly blame on her older brothers. She was brave and adventurous; she was a crier and timid. People she didn't know frightened her but she was as trusting as could be when she loved someone and would sail the seven seas just to see them again. Her brothers, all four of them, teased her and made her strong when it was just them but protected her like crazy when anyone else even glanced at her. I felt bad for anyone she dated in the future. Jackson said it was fine; Mary could date when she turned thirty-five and the boys wouldn't mind.

It broke her heart, and mine a little and Jackson's a lot, when Edward first left on the Hogwarts Express. She cried for him, and refused to be comforted by anyone but Trent, her brother and Edward's best friend. And then that first owl came from him and before Jackson could grab the letter, it went flying into Mary's hands. "Mary, will you give it to me so I can read it?" Jackson asked, looking at her as she tore into the envelope. She shook her head.

"My Edward."

"Mary, you can't read," Trent told her in frustration.

"I can too!"

"Only your name," Trent retorted. I went to scold him when a voice started booming out from the opened letter, startling all of us but Mary.

"See," she told us at the end of the letter. "I can read." When we wrote Edward back, it was to find that he hadn't charmed the letter to read out loud; it had been Mary. Apparently Mary had caught a recessive gene from both Jackson and myself; she had magic.

Out of five children between a pair of muggles, three of them went to Hogwarts. Edward was sorted into Ravenclaw and Robert and Mary went to Gryffindor. To say Jackson and I were nervous during the first war was an understatement. Robert was the one we were most scared about. He worked in Magical Law Enforcement. Edward worked in the Department of Mystreries, whatever that was, and as Jackson didn't even have a clear idea of what that entailed I figured that whoever the "enemy" was in this war, they probably weren't all that interested in Edward. Mary was working in a shop on Diagon Alley, their main shopping center. The only thing I worried about with her, was her friends. She'd hinted that some of her friends from school, including a girl named Lily, were possibly fighting as heavily as the Aurors, the top guys in Magical Law Enforcement according to Robert. Edward and Robert both warned her to keep her eye up and her head down. They were worried about her; Edward convinced her to rent the spare room he and his wife had and Robert dropped by on her all the time. They were half-bloods; she was a muggle-born. Apparently, she was in more danger despite being raised in the same family.

Yet somehow, even with three members in our family of seven dabbling in magic, we all made it through. The war ended and life moved on. Paul, the oldest of the boys had a daughter just a month after the war ended and three boys after her. He worked as a newspaper journalist and was often handed the odd and unusual stories; he had a reputation for finding the best angle or to those of us in the know, he had the greatest ability to spin incidents of magic into "muggle-fact". Edward continued to work in the Department of Mysteries, coming up for air every once in a while and then suddenly one day eloping with a girl who also worked in the department that he'd known for two days with no real rhyme or reason other than, as they said it, "trying to test the idea of love". The Department of Mysteries made Edward strange at times but he was still the quick, caring boy he'd been. It was no surprise to me his wife fell in love with him. Trent became a teacher and married the same year as Paul. He had two kids, a boy and a girl. Robert kept right on working for Magical Law Enforcement and insisted he would never be married. He did last past Mary at any rate I suppose. And Mary kept on working in the shop, eventually taking charge when the owner moved into semi-retirement and only ran the store from afar.

She told me one night when she came over at dinner that there was a man who kept coming into the store, although she wasn't sure how often a man could need potions ingredients. He seemed to be buying one thing at a time, finding it right away but taking forever to purchase it. She liked him. His name was Reginald, she told me, but he went by Reg. He liked to come in when they weren't busy and talk to her. Edward looked up at Trent and raised his eyebrows, a silent agreement to beat up the man who apparently fancied their baby sister. For this Reg's sake, I was grateful that neither Robert nor Paul was there.

They had been married three years and Mary was expecting her second child when I came to their house in one evening when Mary was a week away from her due date. Reg had been called back to work; apparently there was some massive clean-up needed after some kind of animal had, well, been an animal. And I found Mary there, sitting on the ground with a photo album on her lap, tears in her eyes. "What's wrong?" I asked, rushing over to her. "Mary, are you all right? What's-"

"I'm fine," she told me, looking up and I realized there were no sobs attached to her tears, just wet drops running down her cheeks. "I got a letter from the groundskeeper at Hogwarts today," she said, the tears still flowing. "He wanted to know if I had any pictures of Lily or James for- for Harry, their- their son," she stumbled, looking over at me, her eyes bright with tears. "She was my friend, Mum, my friend and my dormmate and- I just- I miss her," she said, the hormones mixing with the loss of a friend. I sat down beside her and rubbed her back as she used her wand to copy pictures and put them into an envelope to send off to the groundskeeper.

A year and a half later, Alfred was three and jumping around her, Ellie was eighteen months, and Mary had just gotten pregnant with a third child. But everyone was worried. I knew who Sirius Black was and I understood why my family was coming in closer, trying to stay close in case the unthinkable happened. From then on things just seemed to get worse. The next year, they still hadn't caught him and then a boy died. Robert and Edward became divided on whether or not Dumbledore was telling the truth, though neither of them was passionate enough to be truly mad at the other. Mary stayed out of it. I decided not to believe, based on what I knew. Then, suddenly I was wrong. There was a war, a big one, as big as the first and everyone was frightened.

Suddenly, we were all drawing closer together again, trying to protect each other. Robert was setting up wards, Edward was particularly disturbed because the battle that had introduced the war into the public eye had happened in his Department and he and his wife kept coming up with zany ideas to keep us safe. Paul talked to a friend of his and got tickets at the airport that he kept on hand, just incase someone needed to run, any of us. There were laws against using magic to get across borders. Mary and Trent were just scared, right along with me. And again, it was Mary that Edward and Robert were the most scared for. This time, I realized it was justified.

Robert came rushing into the house that afternoon, his face pale and panicked. Mary was gone and he didn't know where. She'd had trial today to establish her blood purity. Edward had helped her to come up with a fake family tree but he didn't know whether or not it had worked. He was near tears. Mary could be dead or in Azkaban or- he stopped, very near starting to cry, a scary sight for Robert who had never been the crier in the family. He was the one who tried to hold his face straight when he broke his arm at the age of eight. But he was crying in worry for his sister. That's when I finally thought I understood how bad things had become. I burst into tears.

"She's fine!" Edward called as he ran into the room. "She got away, her and Reg and the kids."

"Took the plane tickets," Paul said, gasping a little as Edward let him go. Paul hated side-along apparition. Robert began to steady himself and I still felt tears running down my eyes but I was no longer sobbing.

"Where are they?" Jackson asked, his eyes filled with concern, same as the rest of us. Her blood shouldn't have mattered. That point struck me bitterly. Robert and Edward were half-blood so they were safe, even if they had been raised by the same family. It wasn't that I wished anything bad to happen to them; I loved them like my own sons. I just wished Mary was as safe as they were.

"She's lost," I finally managed to say, answering Jackson's question, the answer we all knew but couldn't say.

"And she should stay that way," Edward added with pain in his voice. I had quite literally lost my daughter because of magic, because I wasn't like Edward and Robert's biological mother. I wasn't a witch. And for the first time ever, I found myself regretting that my daughter had become one. Maybe if she wasn't, she would have still been safe, she wouldn't have been lost.

**No I don't know that Mary Cattermole and Mary MacDonald are one and the same. In fact, they're probably not. It's probably another Mark Evans. But they're both given a name in the seventh book so I figured, what the heck, I'd try and make it work. Hopefully I didn't fail at that. And no, she wouldn't have recognized Harry in the Ministry because he had Polyjuice in his system at the time (before anyone asks, ****:))****.**

**I hope you liked it and again, sorry for not updating in forever. Dirk Cresswell is a pain and we're going to blame it on him.**


	7. Dirk

**All right, all right, I'll admit it. I am not the author of the Harry Potter books. I am not J.K. Rowling.  
**

Diederik Winston Cresswell

June 12th 1962- January 7th, 1998

I was told, and grew to believe, the death of a name could be just as devastating as the death of a person. So we were overjoyed when after three girls, we finally had a son, Diederik Winston Cresswell.

By the time he was born, our oldest two daughters were already in secondary school at fifteen and twelve years old. We barely saw them. Victoria was almost always at a friend's house over school breaks, something my husband approved of greatly. He called it making contacts. Isabelle was home more often but she was often shut up in her room, a hardcore studier. We had decided to have no more children shortly after Isabelle was born. We had two girls but we figured that Gerald, my husband's brother, would have a son. Gerald never married. We gave up on him eventually and had Anna the year before Isabelle started school. Diederik, Dirk, was finally born two years later. He was a boy. He would have to get married and carry on the name. Cresswell would not die.

He was four when something strange happened. All week he had been trying to break into Anna's fish tank. Every time he saw it, he pleaded that he just wanted to pet the fish for a second. Anna, of course, got angry by this very suggestion, insisting that he would kill her fish if he took it out, often leading to a noisy crying fit on Dirk's part. I was getting dressed that morning when I heard a scream coming from her room. Without thinking, I hurried toward the room, dress still unzipped to find, the nanny, Clara, a young girl the same age as Victoria, staring wide-eyed as the fish hovered above Dirk's hands. It took me a second to realize the fish was not actually floating in the air but was swimming in a large bubble of water.

"See, I'm not killing the fish," Dirk said smugly, dipping his hand into the water and petting it. I had no idea what to say; I was as speechless as the nineteen-year-old nanny.

Again something strange happened when Dirk was seven and he reached his hand into the fireplace to grab a picture of his Anna had thrown in there in retaliation for Dirk's throwing away one of her stuffed animals. It was in front of his father, Winston, and it was when a fire was burning. Dirk brought his arm out unburned with the picture in one piece. I told Winston then about the event three years earlier but like me, he had no idea what to think about it.

For the most part, however, we just let it be. Dirk may have possessed strange abilities but it never seemed to interfere with anything. He did outstandingly well in school, with an unbelievable grasp of math and language. He and Anna were at each other's throats most of the time but stuck up for each other against any other combatant, including Victoria and Isabelle, the two girls who floated back around the holidays and were almost considered foreign invaders rather than sisters to the world of Dirk and Anna.

Then he was eleven and getting ready to go off to boarding school in the fall. Anna she said she missed her little brother and was anxious for him to go. Her school was right across the way from the one he would be starting. But then the doorbell rang on Wednesday afternoon and the nanny opened the door for a short woman with dirt under her fingernails. She introduced herself as Professor Pomana Sprout. She taught Herbology, the study of magical plants at a school called Hogwarts and they were holding a place for Dirk. Dirk was a wizard.

Anna sat frozen on the couch, a little sad at the sound of Dirk going to a far off school. Dirk seemed speechless with excitement. I couldn't make myself say a word, still ingesting the prospect of another world I hadn't even known about, a world of magic. It was Clara, the nanny who started asking questions about books and clothes and classes. Professor Sprout answered her, perhaps assuming Clara was a relative. I stood up and shook her hand, thanking her when she left. Then I waited to tell Winston about Dirk's potential school.

We eventually agreed to send him for a year, deciding that he was bright enough to catch up over the summer if need be, if we found out the school was worthless for him. He always insisted it wasn't when we drilled him during the beginning of summer, even as he began teaching himself a language he said was truly called Gobbledegook and leading an assortment of strange friends through, one of which was Brandon Duple, a boy a year younger than Dirk who at fourteen starting flirting constantly with Anna. I shook my head as Anna giggled at the boy three years younger than her.

And then, in a blink of an eye, they were grown, Anna, Dirk, and even the clueless boy who flirted with her. Dirk was working in the government and Anna was getting through school. Dirk was heading up in the Ministry of Magic and Anna was engaged to the boy three years younger than her. Anna had a daughter and Dirk was getting married. Dirk fulfilled his obligation and had three sons and Anna and Brandon seemed happy with their two girls. Everything was fine. And then Clara came back.

She came bearing flowers with tears in her eyes, saying that she was so sorry. I stared at her. I couldn't imagine what she was sorry about, why she was there. I hadn't seen her since Dirk was eleven. "Dirk," she said looking at me with disbelieving eyes.

"What about him?" I asked her, wondering what could possibly be wrong.

"He died," she said, the tears starting to spill down her cheek again. "In the war."

"What war?" And she stared at me for a moment and then started to talk about all I had been oblivious too. Clara told me about all the signs of magic I had missed when Dirk was younger, about the war in the wizarding world, about music and goblins and blood-status. She babbled on and on about the world my son had joined and I knew nothing about, things about Dirk I had missed, about Anna I had missed. She told me about my grandchildren that I hadn't even seen in over a year.

"How do you know all this?" I questioned, this strange nanny now a grown woman. She looked at me just as disbelieving.

"My nephew is Brandon Duple," she told me. "My sister is Anna's mother-in-law." She shook her head at me. "What else have you missed? Did you know that Isabelle's Taylor is a girl? That Victoria and her husband have been separated for three years?" I shook my head. She knew through Anna who she saw regularly, as in once a month regularly, through Dirk who she had seen about every month and a half until he had been captured. Apparently my older daughters and my younger two children had grown close in the years between and I hadn't noticed. I watched as the woman who had lived with us from the time Dirk was three till he was eleven walk out of the door, the woman who had raised him and yet who I barely knew. She was the one who had heard about his death first, the one who had cried first, the one who was getting condolences from my Anna. I was the one who had lost a son and no one had told for over three months because I hadn't even known he was in danger.

**I know, horrid chapter but Dirk was really, really hard for me. I finally decided to just post it because I've been done with Penny for ages but I haven't posted it because I kept hoping I'd get a sudden idea for improving Dirk's story. No such luck. Anyway, I'm sorry if you hate me. I'm going to post Penny's too so that maybe you'll forgive me?**


	8. Penny

**If I had a penny for everyone who thought I was really J.K. Rowling than I'd probably have zero pennies, which is sad. Nonetheless, here is me disclaiming ownership of Harry Potter because what else do you do in an author's note?  
**

Penelope Madison Clearwater

September 23rd, 1975 - Present

"He would chuck as much as a wood chuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood," my daughter answered with effort before pushing air through the gap where her teeth had once been, attempting yet again to whistle. I gave the pigtail on my right a last tug to make sure it stayed and then let my hands drop. She turned around and grinned, still awfully proud of her missing teeth and that she had answered my tongue twister with the correct tongue twister.

"There's cereal on the table Penny," I told her. "Go eat while I get your brother ready." She nodded and skipped off before I left the bathroom from Zach's room. My three-year-old son was curled tight in a bundle of blankets and peaked out blearily as I came into the room.

"Don't wanna go," he mumbled.

"You're just going to stay home with Daddy for a while." He buried his head under the blanket again and I walked toward his bed, untangling him from the blanket, carrying him into the hallway before he began to squirm. I put him down and took his left hand, leading him to the bathroom as he rubbed at his eyes with the right. Thankfully, he was three and didn't have to be completely coherent in the morning. Penny, as she often proudly declared, went to real school. Penny had to be woken up earlier so she would actually be awake in time for school. Neither of them were morning people; I blamed their father.

Once Zach had his teeth brushed and clothes on, we went to the kitchen where Penny was sitting at the table, eating cereal while my husband, Elijah, ate cold leftovers from the night before, not even bothering to warm them up beforehand. I rolled my eyes at him, ruffling his hair and he grinned back at me as I settled Zach into his chair. "Daddy said there was a really loud cricket in the building last night," Penny informed me.

"Oh really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as Elijah got up and beat me to the box of cereal, pouring it into a bowl for Zach. "Thanks," I told him lightly, heading now for the refrigerator with the milk. Zach wouldn't it his cereal with milk on it.

"I've got it," I told him.

"Go sit down, eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're shaking, Avery," he told me. "Almost bouncing up and down. You'll do fine today," he assured, reaching around me to get to the milk. I looked up at him, finally realizing that, yes, when I was standing still my hands were shaking with anticipation.

"I'm nervous."

"You're more than qualified." I had an interview today for another job after work. I was a teacher at the same school Penny went to, though a different year. This new school offered high pay, if I got it, plus a place for Penny and later Zach. Overall, it was considered a better school.

"I'm still nervous," I told him plainly. He set down the milk on the counter and put his arms around me.

"Stop throwing cereal on me!" Penny yelled. We both jumped and saw Zach stick out his tongue and chuck another piece at his sister.

"Zachary Clearwater-" I began but never finished as the remains of Penny's breakfast rocketed across the table and dumped themselves on Zach's head before the bowl landed gently on his hair like a hat. Zach began to cry, milk dripping from his hair, down his ears, and through his eyelashes. Penny's eyes were wide.

"I didn't mean to!" she said quickly, looking at Elijah and I with big brown eyes. Had she thrown it? I thought her hands had been up at her face, defending herself from chunks of cereal. "I was only thinking it would be funny and make him stop but I didn't mean to! I didn't even touch it!"

"Did you see her throw it?" Elijah asked. I shook my head, retracing the strange trajectory of the bowl in my head. It had stayed perfectly upright until it was right above Zach and it had defied gravity for a moment to rest gently against his head instead of clunking him hard. Elijah gave me a shove. "Just go, you and Penny. I'll get Zach cleaned up and get him to school," he told me. "Don't worry so much."

"Will you remember to-"

"I already set the alarm so that I wake up in time to pick them up," he assured me. Elijah usually slept most of the day. He worked nights as the head night guard of a museum. I nodded and headed toward the door. Penny had already crept away, tears in her eyes as she stood by the front door buckling her shoes.

"I didn't know I could do that with my mind," she told me, her face full of guilt like it normally was when she thought she had broken the rules. But she hadn't thrown it.

I pondered what to say for a moment as I put on my own shoes before turning back to her, "Mr. See owned a saw," I began slowly, "and Mr. Soar owned a seasaw…"

"…now Mr. See's saw sawed Mr. Soar's seasaw before Soar saw See," Penelope said quickly, swishing her long braid behind her as she and her friend Elizabeth walked up the front path. I took a deep breath and opened the door. Over four years had passed. Penny was heading into secondary school next year, or maybe she wasn't. She had just turned eleven in April.

"Elizabeth, honey, you're going to need to go home. Someone just stopped by to see Penny."

"Penelope," she corrected. She now insisted that Penny made her sound like a baby or a horse.

"Penelope," I sighed. "Sorry Elizabeth. Tell your mother hello for me." Penny said her own good-byes and trudged after me into the house.

"Who's here?" she asked, taking off her shoes. I didn't answer as she walked into the living room and saw the short man in the dress-like outfit sitting on the couch with her father. I sat down next to Elijah and Penny sank down into a chair.

"Penelope Clearwater, I presume?" the little man chirped. Slowly she nodded.

"What did I do?" she asked wide-eyed, seeing the books he had brought, the letter in his hand, the grave looks on our faces. Penny was always the one to ask what she had done, though she was a strict rule follower. Zach was the one who was always tracking mud through the house and pulling pranks but confronted with a situation like this he would have said, "It wasn't me."

"Magic," the man answered. "You've done magic in the past and I'm here to offer you the chance to learn more." It seemed like it was an instant before she was disappearing on the platform for her first year, shaking with nerves like I had been years ago for the interview for the teaching job I had gotten.

"You'll do great," Elijah told her, giving her a big hug.

"Tell me everything," Zach made her promise. He had been bummed for about ten minutes when he found out that he probably couldn't do magic; he'd never shown any signs of it. Now he saw it as an even greater challenge to get through when pranking Penny.

I gave her a hug and moved forward to kiss her cheek, instead whispering in her ear, "If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch?" She giggled and hugged me back before hurrying on to the train with her legs that seemed to long and thin to hold her. The reason she really hated being called Penny right now was that someone had made the mistake of calling her coltish within her hearing range and she had taken it badly. I secretly didn't think there was anything bad about Penny being thought of like a horse. She was quick in mind and body, and she was shy.

Years passed and she graduated Hogwarts, a full witch, starting work in Goblin Licensing. She was still Penny, quick, smart, and rather shy. She'd lived through making new friends, getting through classes, being a prefect, having a boyfriend, and even being petrified at that school. I didn't understand how she wanted to continue with magic after that last one but she went back for her final year, breaking up amicably with her boyfriend at the end. And then the war restarted.

For about a year she was frantic but there. She wrote us quick notes, stopped by briefly for holidays, and called when she ran across a pay phone by chance. And then, suddenly, there was nothing, for a whole year. Without Penny, we had no way of contacting the wizarding world, no way of entering Diagon Alley even though we knew where it was.

It was nearly a year before we saw her again. In the deepest part of my heart, I had begun to believe she was dead, begun to grieve and so had Elijah. Then the doorbell rang and I opened it to see a man in long wizarding robes I did not recognize and a quaking woman I barely knew. "Please," the man said as my eyes widened and I tried to race toward my daughter. "You don't want to do that right now." He had drawn an invisible barrier between myself and my daughter that he then took down. "Slowly. You have to take everything slowly. You're going to want me to explain." He turned toward my daughter as I glared at him, Elijah coming up behind me. I didn't like this man. He seemed to emotionless and cold. What was wrong with Penny? Why was she shaking? Why hadn't she said anything? Why was she chewing her hair? Her whole appearance was disheveled, her eyes seemingly too vacant.

"Penelope," the man said slowly, "we're going to go in the house now, all right?"

"She's a smart girl," I told the man crossly. For a second sadness seemed to cross his eyes as Penny slowly nodded and went into the house with the man leading her, settling her down on the couch before standing beside her. "Is there somewhere we could go and talk about this without her?" he asked softly. Penny stared across the room blankly. I glared at him but Elijah nodded and led him into the kitchen. I followed behind, keeping my eyes on Penny as long as possible before standing at Elijah's side. He took my hand.

"What's wrong with Penny?" Elijah asked immediately. The man took a deep breath.

"What do you know about a place called Azkaban?" he asked.

"It's a prison," I answered. "With horrid creatures as guards, Penny said. She said they were at Hogwarts her-"

"Why are you asking?" Elijah interrupted. "There's no reason Penny would be there. She's a good girl, always has been. She follows the rules; she-" he stopped as the wizard met his eyes.

"There was a law passed a year ago after our government was taken over by You-Know-Who. You do know who You-Know-Who is, right?" he asked seriously. We nodded. He took a breath and continued. "The law that was passed called for the registration of all muggle-borns, accusing them of stealing there magic, which does not happen. Magic is something you are born with or not, not something that can be stolen."

"Professor Flitwick explained this too us when she left for school," I said angrily. The man still seemed un-phased.

"I'm sorry. There are some families who know very, very little," he told us. I didn't like the sound of that. Neither, apparently did Elijah. He began shaking his head.

"No," he said flatly. "No, tell me she was not in Azkaban."

"I'm sorry," the man said. "She was imprisoned nearly ten months ago. She was one of the first brought into Azkaban using the Muggle-born Registration Act. She didn't even have time to think of escaping."

"No!" Elijah insisted. My mind was flooded, remembering what Penny had told me about Azkaban and the Dementors. Ten months, I thought in my mind.

"Obviously, she can be placed in St. Mungo's to be put on a recovery plan but often those leaving Azkaban are better in a place where they've had happy memories in the past," the man continued. "It's your choice. She is still your daughter just," he paused searching for a word, "she's cold," he decided. "Her soul and her mind are cold and need to be warmed up."

"She'll stay here," I insisted, not even glancing at Elijah though I knew he would agree. "You're the ones who made her like this."

"I had nothing to do with the Muggle-born Regi-" I ignored him and walked out of the kitchen. She sat there, still on the couch, shaking. Cautiously I moved forward and sat down next to her. Her head turned and she looked at me as if she were confused, like I was a figure from a dream and she was trying to figure out if she was awake or asleep. I struggled for something to say.

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck, could chuck wood?" I asked her, hoping to hear her answer. She whined and kept quaking. A bit my lip, trying to restrain myself from begging her not to be gone. "Penny," I muttered, staring at the woman in front of me. The strange wizard was leaving, off to deliver a child and bad news to another set of muggles. "Please."


	9. Hermione

**So if you think Harry Potter belongs to me, well, I'm curious how Wilson is because apparently you've been on your own for far too long.**

Hermione Jean Granger

September 19th, 1979 - Present

"It's a girl!" the nurse announced and Jack repeated the piece of information as though it was the most amazing thing he had every heard. "A girl, Sophie, it's a girl," he pressed, a huge grin on his face as he watched with wide eyes as the tiny creature wrapped in a blanket was moved into my arms. And despite the amount of times I had rolled my eyes at the thought of birth being so special, having spent a number of years in school learning about how birth was just a part of life, I suddenly understood. It was my baby girl, perfect as could be. And in that instant I wanted everything for her that mothers hope for. I wanted her to have the best of friends, to be smart, to be brave, and to be able to do anything she ever wanted. But there's always a catch.

_"Who are you?"_

By a year and a half she was babbling away in full sentences and she was desperate to learn to read by three. Her imagination was endless back then, filling her days with fantasies of everything from being a fairy princess to a dentist like Jack and me to an odd venture into a game of being an accountant. And she was talkative too. Our house was never quiet when Hermione was there. She would often talk to herself or her stuffed animals, perfectly happy in her own little world. When she was pulled away, she was sweet and affectionate, the type of little girl to give us kisses and hugs without a real reason. Jack's mother took care of her during the day and absolutely loved her. Everyone loved her, but I knew I loved her most.

_"Please, I know you don't remember me, but I'm your daughter. Just give me a minute, I promise you'll remember. I hope." Those brown eyes were pleading, those brown eyes like Wendell's._

In the earliest of days she loved school. She was Hermione. She loved learning. But right about the age of "cooties" she started to hate it. Her friends had been boys in the early years, back before it mattered, but suddenly things were different. Boys and girls didn't want to play together and Hermione was left rather high and dry. Most of the boys were polite enough but didn't really let her join anymore. The girls teased her and whispered behind her back. More than once, she came home from school with tears in her eyes. We tried talking to her teachers, tried to make things better but there really wasn't much that could be done. Hermione stood out like a sore thumb and while some of the teasing subsided, Hermione was still alone and it broke my heart.

_"We don't have a daughter," Wendell told her angrily. "Go away. Whatever you're selling, we don't want any."_

She decided that she wanted to become a scientist the year before she started secondary school. Her room became littered with her experiments. But there was something odd about her experiments. She could make her plant subjects grow faster than was anywhere near normal. She magnified bugs to study them, not with a lens but by simply making them grow bigger. A couple of times she accidently started fires without the help of matches or any other heat source that we could tell. The shocking thing, however, wasn't really her experiments; it was how unsurprised Jack and I were. Hermione had always been able to make strange things happen. But now it was just more focused. I gave up trying to explain it; Jack and Hermione pressed there heads together to try and find an explanation. I smiled at my husband a daughter. If there was anyone who competed with me in loving Hermione, it was Jack.

_"Please, Daddy, just give me a minute. I promise."_

Jack and Hermione got their explanation that summer when a wizard showed up at our door, a nervous man who stuttered all the way through his spiel about the wizarding world. But I knew Hermione wanted to go. I watched as her eyes lit up with interest, the same way they did when she got a new book. And I wasn't going to stop her. Maybe at this new school, where there were other people who were different, she could make friends.

_A tall young man with red hair tentatively put a hand on her shoulder as the other young man watched silently. "It'll just take a minute. She's the brightest witch in our year. She'll have the spell undone in no time," the redhead assured us. Wendell glared._

Hermione got her friends and she loved them, two boys. Her boys. The way she talked about them was somewhere between an annoyed teacher, an affectionate mother, and the happy little girl she had been years ago with her first friends before "cooties". So from a distance I loved those boys because they made her happy. But they drug her into danger. At the end of her first year, she was unable to keep the story of her adventures underneath her school from us. After her third year, she hinted but squirmed as she tried to use the names of things that weren't in the muggle world to get us to leave her alone, not explaining what Dementors were (though I'd figured that out from a paper) and not actually mentioning Sirius Black (Jack managed to piece that one together with the sudden lack of news about the relatively mysterious convict). At the end of her fourth year she tried to distract us with stories of Victor Krum and Harry's winning of some tournament. There was something more she was worried about. She begged for permission to go stay at Ron and Ginny's before she actually said what was going on. We made plans for Christmas.

_I shrieked as I saw the girl pull something out of her pocket, crashing backwards into Wendell. I thought it was a gun. "We don't know anything about spells and magic!" Wendell told them, the panic in his voice. "What kind of code is this?"_

She didn't stay at Christmas but she left behind a paper unintentionally and she spilled more than she would have wanted to as she worried about Harry and Ron. Harry was having nightmares that put him into Voldemort's mind; Ron's dad was hurt. We let her go. She came back during that summer still slightly hurting from a battle that had put the war into the headlines of the paper, the paper Jack and I were snooping in, hoping to get some idea of what was going on. Nonetheless, she left soon to go to the Weasleys. Though I didn't want to, I believed it was only the fact that she and Ron were in a fight that let her come home for the whole of Christmas break her sixth year. The war made her want to be closer to the wizarding world at all times, to keep track of her boys. She came back for less than an hour after her sixth year.

_"Please," she repeated and pointed a stick at us, "remember." And suddenly there was a flash of light and Wendell and Monica were no more._

And I wondered what the reaction was supposed to be when she came home after her sixth year and told us that she was going to modify our memories. There was no doubt in my mind that terrified was a good thing to feel. After all, though she wouldn't say, I didn't doubt my daughter was going to do something dangerous with "her boys". That was my main source of fear but I was also afraid of being someone else, someone new. But she didn't give us time to respond. She pointed her wand at us and Wendell and Monica were born.

_What was I supposed to feel when I saw her again, my Hermione, our baby girl, standing there with Ron and Harry? Relieved that she was safe? Angry that she had changed our memories and erased herself, even if it had been temporarily? Happy that the war was over? Sad that I had missed the last year of her childhood? I wasn't sure. All I felt was confusion as Jack and I looked at the stranger I would always love and might never get to know again. I had all my memories back but that was enough to know Hermione anymore._

**Right, so, I haven't updated in forever. Besides school re-starting, I was really nervous about doing Hermione since people actually have written about Hermione. Like a lot. So anyway, here it is. Hope you like it. Review, please?**


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